We'll Be Okay
by Jelly Bean Jenna
Summary: That image would be forever burned into his heart and soul. It was the image of Andy moving on. One Shot.


**Hello again, here's a little bit of fluff based after the Sam Swarek Webisode of him in Enid Dwyers office. It's on Youtube, so check it out! **

**As always thanks to all the awesome people that make it worth writing! & thanks to kelly2727 for her awesomeness!**

**We'll be okay. **

Sam left the building, a flurry of activity causing his brain to tie up in knots.

How the good doctor had managed to get him to open up and talk was completely a mystery. She had made him tell her more than he had told well, anyone in a really long time. Even more than he'd told Andy. This had even been achieved in less than ten minutes.

Sam dropped his cold coffee into a trashcan on the sidewalk as soon as he saw one before he checked the street and crossed over to his truck. Just as he looked up he caught sight of Andy going into the same building that he had just left, she obviously had an appointment too.

Sam froze when he caught sight of her, the last time that he had seen her was unforgettable, no matter how hard he tried to force the images out of his mind; they just wouldn't go away.

It was less than twenty-four hours ago, but that image would be forever burned into his heart and soul. It was the image of Andy moving on.

He never expected it to tear away at him, break a small piece of him, but it had. Badly.

He had come out of the barn last night and had every intention of heading over to the Penny for a few cold beers with Oliver. It was hot and it had been a long day, a few ice cold ones were inviting, or at least had been until the image of Andy in front of him pulled the earth out from under his feet.

She was standing in the parking lot with Collins in a liplock that wasn't for show.

Sam had never anticipated that, he'd never even seen it coming- the whole thing with Collins and And... McNally had seemed platonic, until that moment.

But he had no right to judge, so he slipped back inside the barn and went looking for Marlo.

As soon as he had found her she knew what was coming, his face gave it away. All he had said was "I need space". It felt really weird to say that especially to Marlo when he could have saved himself a lot of pain and suffering by saying it to someone else a long time ago.

"It's McNally, isn't it". Marlo had said dryly.

"No, it's me". Even before he said it Sam knew that it would sound like a cliche, but it was the truth, this was about him.

It was about what he felt when he saw Andy and Collins, how it tilted his world at an axis that made his head spin.

Marlo had kissed him on the cheek and walked away, she didn't seem all that mad, or upset so Sam figured that she had seen this coming. Her sad smile had told him that this was over, that she had accepted that he would never move on and fully let go of McNally.

Sam had bailed on Oliver and gone home to seek solace at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, something he rarely did because of the consequences of not finding your way back.

He had arrived at the barn to have Frank tell him about his pre scheduled appointment this morning, and that was how he had ended up here now.

Catching sight of Andy now did little to make the onslaught of emotions he'd been feeling since last night go away. That was probably also the reason that Dr Dwyer had managed to drag some of his most kept secrets out of him without even trying.

Sam noticed the clouds rolling overhead, the telltale sign that a summer storm was near. It made him wait even though he knew that it was probably a stupid move.

Waiting for a girl that had a boyfriend because there was a storm drifting in over the city was looking for trouble. But he waited anyway.

Sam leaned against the side of his truck and noted the time, he guessed that she wouldn't see her full hour either, but if she did, he'd still be there waiting.

It was a little over an hour later when Andy emerged to find the sky darker and rolling thunder in the distance. She stopped just outside the door and looked up and down the street in search of a cab. Instead she found Sam watching her from across the street.

Sam gave her the best dimpled grin that he could scrape together, but he knew that she'd tell it was forced. She always knew.

Andy crossed the street and flinched a little when lightning zigzagged across the sky. It made Sam wonder if she had started hating storms because of the significance one from the past now had in her life.

"Hey" Andy greeted him with a smile, Sam's stomach clenching at the sight of something he still found truly beautiful.

"Hi" he managed to say it without letting it sound angry, or hurt.

"So you too huh?" Andy asked like she was trying to be playful. She found it amusing that he had an appointment too.

"Yup, Frank".

"Me too"

The tension between them seemed to evolve after that, they really hadn't spent all that much time alone recently. Or at all actually.

"Sam..." Andy moved around shifting her bag from one shoulder to the other as her features turned serious and her smile dropped into a frown. Things were definitely still hard for both of them. "I really am sorry"

Her apology came out of the blue, and it didn't take rocket science to figure out what she was apologizing for. He had really been expecting her to tell him about Collins, but guessed that she didn't know how too say those words yet, how to put her new label into more than actions and feelings.

"Me too" Sam said looking away. He was more sorry than she'd ever know.

"So, she get under your skin too?" Andy blurted out the random question her head nodding back towards the building, Sam's gaze focusing back on her. She was feeling uncomfortable, so she was rambling.

"You could say that" Sam added a slight chuckle. If only Andy really knew what had really been said.

"Yeah? So what did she make you say?".

Sam felt a jolt run through him when Andy asked him that. Her words died down just in time for the electrifying crackle of thunder to be heard as she waited for an answer.

"Um". Not his best answer, but he really didn't know how to answer that question. "She told me I'm very self aware" Sam said seconds later just to say something.

Andy let out a light giggle, "I said that you confuse me".

Sam had no idea how to respond to that, so he let out a louder chuckle. A real one.

Sam arched an eyebrow, the feint traces of a real dimpled grin tugging his lips up just a fraction.

"Do I?".

Andy blushed a light pink, the streaks of lightning giving Sam full view of her tinted cheeks.

Andy shrugged and just kept watching him.

Sam took a moment and tried to view them from another perspective. Someone else's point of view. But it wasn't working out all that well, because he couldn't see passed what he felt. He couldn't see passed what he had done by not being the person he should have been for her, the person he wanted to be for her. Ultimately he had failed to be the person she deserved.

"So you and Collins?".

What the hell!

That was supposed to be a thought that stayed locked away, not one that he actually said out aloud, least of all to Andy's face.

"Huh?". Andy seemed confused momentarily.

"Nick and Me?"

Sam saw a whole heap of amusement cross her face before it was clouded over by a range of other emotions before the hurt set in and lingered.

"I uh, I saw you in the parking lot". Sam shoved his hands into his pockets as he looked up at the sky to see the clouds heavy set and ready to burst.

He was trying to keep his emotions out of the conversation, but was failing miserably.

"You saw?"

Andy's voice sounded pained as she asked, she didn't need to ask what he saw, she knew.

Sam had no idea why he even brought that up, maybe he was seeking closure. Maybe hearing her admit it, would make everything better because it would bring everything to an end.

"Sam..."

"It's okay, I get it" Sam felt the first raindrops hit him in the face when his jaw clammed shut. It really wasn't okay, but as long as she was happy he didn't care. Even if it meant that her happiness was with someone else.

"You get it? Get what? There is nothing to get"

"Andy, I don't expect anything... I uh, I screwed up, I should have waited".

Andy's bag slid off her shoulder with a loud thud, her eyes stretching as her face scrunched up. "What?".

Sam liked the feeling that opening up seemed to give him, it was almost a euphoric high. Damnit, he should have done this the first time around.

"He's a good guy Andy".

Sam saw Andy's face littered with raindrops as the skies sent down more dropletts. It felt so wrong to be doing this again.

"Sam I know what you saw, but you've got it wrong".

Sam's eyebrows shot up as he pushed himself off the door of the truck that he had been leaning on for a really, really long time.

"Nick was proving a point". Her voice sounded so flat saying that. It made his mind spur away into considering the reams of points that Collins could have been making by kissing her.

"He wanted me to admit something, and I did. But you probably missed that part".

Andy swiped away the falling raindrops that gathered on her skin and clung to it as she spoke.

"So, he kissed you?". Sam couldn't help saying it, it made it real, made it hurt a hell of a lot more but he had to hear himself say it.

"Because he isn't you".

That kind of caught Sam off guard. It made him draw in a ragged breath as his jaw tensed even more.

"You don't get it Sam, he was proving that it's you, it's still you, I just wouldn't admit it and it was starting to change me because I can't do this anymore".

Sam didn't see that coming either.

_"Me_?".

Andy was looking down as she hoisted her bag back up onto her shoulder. The rain was starting to become more than a few scattered droplets as it wet Andy's hair and caused it to become drenched.

"Don't walk away Andy".

Sam knew that she was about to turn and run, and he had no intention of letting her go.

"I'm done running Sam". She looked him in the eye when she said that, the truth so bright within them that it made himself loose himself.

"I blame myself".

"Sam, don't..."

"I do. If I'd stopped to think for one second things would have been different, we would have been different".

"But we're not, we're who we've become because we both screwed up. I just don't want it to hover anymore".

"Andy, I feel like I broke us, broke myself and I don't want it to hover..."

This was so much harder than he had imagined it would be.

How were you supposed to say sorry for breaking the one part of a person that they had given to you?

Andy's face hardened slightly, a few more raindrops collecting on her eyelashes as she looked up at him through them.

"You didn't break us Sam, we both did that, just in different ways".

Sam could hear the regret seeping into her voice as she spoke, it made it hurt just that little more.

"I shouldn't have walked away, and I'm sorry. I should have waited, I should have let us have a chance to fix the situation...". Sam dropped it there, he'd said the same thing to Dwyer.

"Sam, you can't fix what's not broken and we've never been a situation. We've been trouble, and danger and stupid".

Sam nodded, she was right. They had never been a situation.

Her definition of them was spot on too, they were all of the things she had labeled them as.

"We still are" she said mutely.

"Still are?".

"Stupid. In trouble". Andy shook her head slightly willing her waterlogged hair to get rid of some of the hanging drops.

"Yeah?". Sam was smiling. Really smiling.

"I... Marlo. We're not. That's over".

Admitting that it had been something was hard, his worst punishment was having to admit it to the one person that he had tried to get over by trying to move on.

"Oh".

"When I saw you and Collins, I knew how you felt, I put a label to what I've been seeing you wear, and I'm sorry. It never should have gone that sideways".

"Sam, it's in the past".

"Is it?".

Andy tried to smile but she was faking it.

"Need a ride home?"

Sam gave up on getting anywhere when he saw her walls rebuild themselves up around her.

The rain was really starting to come down, so they would have to move off the sidewalk soon.

"Nope, I'm okay. Besides I like the rain".

"What if I said I want you to take the ride?". Sam couldn't resist asking her that. Asking her because as much as he'd admit that he wasn't going to get anywhere, it didn't mean that he wanted their moment to be over.

"You want me to say yes?".

"I still want you to say yes".

"Why?".

Her question made his insides clench, his breathing becoming erratic and his heart rate picking up. There was only one answer to that question. And this time there was no way for him to get out of saying it, but then again he didn't want too.

Andy was blinking rapidly, the rain starting to obstruct her clear line of sight as it wet her lashes.

Sam stepped forwards and wiped away a few drops from her cheek with his thumb when he cupped her face with his hand. He felt the warmth from the drops as his skin met them, another ragged breath drawn in to fill his lungs.

Andy was crying and he hadn't even noticed.

Damn life for being so hard, and so complicated and for making him make her shed tears.

"Because as long as you love me we'll be okay" Sam said leaning in a little closer.

He felt Andy start to tremble, her body riddled with tiny tremors as she stood frozen gaping at him.

Andy let out a light sound, one that sounded like a whimper. Her gaze dropped and her head tilted forward.

Sam moved his hand so that she would look back up at him, he needed her to see him when he said the only thing left to say.

"As long as I love you, you'll be okay".

Andy took the space between them and closed it with one small step, her arms wrapping around his neck as she finally let herself be pulled closer.

Sam wrapped his arms around Andy and held on as the rain splashed down even more. She had her face buried into the crook of his neck as they stood there between the raindrops and tried to find some kind of closure.

"I'm sorry I wasn't who I should have been, you didn't deserve what I did"

Andy let go and leaned back just enough so that she could see Sam. "Don't blame yourself Sam, we can't always be in control of every situation. You _won't _blame yourself for that, or anything else that happened".

Sam got the feeling that Andy meant what she said- he wouldn't blame himself because she wouldn't let him. She wouldn't allow him to keep blaming himself because she didn't blame him anymore.

Andy's hands were flattened against his chest, the warmth of them through the wet material if his shirt making him wonder how he had even been able to be away from her for so long.

Looking down to find Andy still looking up at him Sam had the urge to kiss her, kiss her standing there in the rain but he wouldn't.

He wouldn't because she deserved better than that, better than being kissed the day after he broke up with his girlfriend because he saw her kissing another guy.

He knew he'd wait before going down that road, wait until they were in the right place. He'd take her out a few times, and they'd spend time together first. He'd maybe kiss her goodnight in her doorway after a date, or he'd maybe kiss her at the Penny. He'd hold her hand before that, because that was one thing he'd missed more than anything else.

Their dates would be him making her dinner because he'd promised her that he would do it, so he was going too start by keeping promises that he'd made back then. The thing about promises was, they didn't expire, so his were still valid.

This time he'd take his time with her, do things right. He would also make sure that he stayed the person he is, to be the person she deserves.

As the clouds burst open and let out all the water they held in giant waves Sam let go of Andy and opened the passenger door for her before rounding the truck and getting in.

Andy was looking out the window, her face hidden from view until she suddenly faced him with grin. She had that same look in her eyes she'd always had when she looked at him, the one that told him that she still felt something.

"How did you know?" She asked, her flushed cheeks telling him that she wanted to know how he knew that she still felt something.

"I didn't. I wasn't sure, but after everything you said and what I feel I had to take the risk. I needed to know if there was enough left too..."

Okay so every single plan that he had set out in his mind for their immediate future, and how slow he planned on taking things; that kinda all just went out the window. He was saying things, but they weren't really what he wanted to say.

Sam cut his words off and let his hand run through his hair as it shook out the excess water in Andy's direction.

"I love you, and I didn't know but I needed to do something. I was ten seconds away from letting you go and never looking back, and you looked at me like you didn't want me too".

Andy was looking at Sam funny, like she thought she had misheard him.

"I do, I always have and it never went away even after you left. I um.." Sam turned to look out the windscreen, the rain pelting down against the glass as it locked the outside world out. "I should have said it sooner, not when I thought you were going to die". Sam finished his sentence still looking out the window, his deepest regrets finally setting themselves free.

"I was so mad when you came there, so mad when you said what you did but I wasn't mad at you Sam, I was mad at myself. I let you force that wedge between us, and I didn't put up the fight I was expecting you too. It was like I was letting double standards get in the way".

Sam looked back at Andy to find her head down, she still looked sad, but not as sad as she once had. That was the only reason that he was clued in to how she felt; the sadness had left her eyes when she looked at him and her true feelings were visible.

"Do you mean it?". She looked up at him, her lips rolling over each other as she pursed them together after they stopped talking.

Sam knew what she was doing, he knew what she wanted. She wanted to hear him say it again, hear the words without any kind of situation forcing him into saying them.

So he gave them to her, unrestricted, unbound by circumstances, and under his own control.

"I do, I do mean it. I love you".

They made her smile, and her eyes twinkle in the light of the thunder as it lit up the interior of the truck.

Then she did the unexpected, she returned the words when he thought that her wounds would still be too fresh to hide. This time she said them without rambling on about how she didn't need to hear them back.

"I love you too Sam".

But it didn't matter how she said them, she had still said them. And he had said them first, said them without trying to sweep them away and cover them up.

Hearing her say them this time, had been better than hearing her say them the first time, hearing her say them the only other time that she had ever said them.

"And we're gonna be okay" she added.

Smiling back at her, Sam reached out for her hand and held it in his before giving her the surety that she needed. "We'll be okay", because this time he was going to make sure that they were, because he was going to fight for her.

******Thanks for reading, hope you'll leave a review & let me know your thoughts?**

**Have an awesome day!**

**Jelly Bean Jenna©**


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